This review was written by DCist contributor Adrian Parsons.

There's a new Dada exhibit at the National Gallery this weekend with an awesome review. With Man Ray and Duchamp at the helm, there will no doubt be another child-crushing mob lining up to check out the show—go see it. Unfortunately, it's passé. Where are the starving artists of WWI's disillusion and dadaism? The new artist is the credit card debt imbued artist, and D.C.'s representatives bring The Relationship Show to reveal the mine-filled challenges of making art happen in the District.

As you approach transformer gallery, you'll hear the show before you see it. Breck Brunson's sound piece slows down pop R&B classic "Always and Forever" to a long moan at 1/10th its original speed, blasting outside on to plainly unnerved Whole Foods shoppers. It's not just tongue-in-cheek, it's a call, with the scared curiously stepping in to the gallery to discover why, what, and who.

2002 Corcoran graduates Nilay Lawson, Breck Brunson, and Solomon Sanchez have put together a tight show that explores the social and financial underdog status of artists. If you aren't an artist, don't let that stop you. Lawson's painting "Spite Night" shows party goers reveling, drinkers spitting livers, smokers spitting lungs, and one lone mastubator viewed from a godlike video game perspective. Isolation and degradation compiled, Lawson is not conceding that the artist is the one underdog in the room, or the gallery.

Sanchez depicts the cerebral side of the show. His sculpture is a clean lined white carved submarine descending in to a sea of hair. The vessel sinks in to the head of the artist. Here is the self portrait of the literal "under the radar artist." There's serious introspection here, served with a joke and surprising beauty. A safe sits in the corner holding stacks of money—this is the riches and fame Warhol and The Fabulous Life promised young artists—but it is cartoonish, Pixar-shiny, and obviously fake, rendered by Sanchez's own hand. "I was a thousand dollars in debt," Solomon laments. "Now, it's three thousand with all the fees."

So this is why the dadaists starved and these contemporaries are indebted to the Capitol Ones and various collection agencies? Their obscure references and obtuse materials? No, this is how the dadaists became the most important movement of the last century. These are the new artists that make D.C. galleries worth the trip, revealing their insecurities, giggling, making it easier to reveal ours.

Then one P street vagabond knocks at the gallery door on this blustery day, led by a grinding on her ears. Another believer, someone else interested in the plight of the D.C. artist. A DCPD officer at that. Breck Brensen answers the door.

"What is this?"
"'Always and Forever', you know the Heatwave song? Slowed to an hour long"
"You're kidding me."

The Relationship Show is at transformer gallery (1404 14th Street NW DC), Wed. through Sat., 1 – 7 p.m., through March 4th.